While the invention has a variety of applications, it is particularly useful in sanding drywall or sheetrock in building construction to prepare the surface for painting. The current drywall practice is to tape and finish the drywall with joint cement and then often to spray a textured finish on the ceiling. The resulting area spray and granular texture of the spray creates a painting and sanding problem for the painter. One objective of the invention is to provide a means for quickly and easily smoothing the joint between the wall and the ceiling to an easily painted surface at the ceiling line resulting in a smooth, professional appearance. When sanding is accomplished in the conventional way using a piece of folded sandpaper or a sanding block several deficiencies are encountered, including abrasion of the skin on the fingertips. Following a period of use, bleeding often occurs. Moreover, the sandpaper does not reach into the corner and does not provide a groove for the painter's brush. In addition, the sandpaper is difficult to hold and manipulate to achieve a professional appearance. This makes imperfections difficult to see until they are made noticeable by painting.
In view of these deficiencies it is an important objective of the invention to provide an improved sanding appliance that produces a smooth professional appearance and eliminates abrasion of the skin on the fingertips. It is also an objective to provide an improved sanding appliance which reaches into corners better and assist in providing a groove between the ceiling and wall for a painter's brush. It is another objective to make the sandpaper easy to hold and manipulate to achieve a professional appearance and to reliably sand or smooth the area between the ceiling and wall so that imperfections are more reliably removed as well as facilitating the sanding of inside and outside corners, i.e. intersection between walls. A further object is to provide a precisely finished edge between the texturized ceiling and a wall which permits painters to use a brush to "stripe a line" without getting texture material into the brush, thereby eliminating constant cleaning of the brush while painting. Yet another object is to provide an improved sanding appliance that is suited for use in a variety of applications including sheetrock tape sanding, use by painters, use in auto body finishing, furniture finishing, do-it-yourself applications and industrial or factory finishing.
These and other more detailed and specific objects of the invention will be apparent in view of the following specification which illustrates by way of example but a few of the various forms of the present invention that will be apparent to those skilled in the art within the scope of the appended claims.